Three candidates later, the University of Tennesee finally found their next basketball coach. After Cuonzo Martin left for the University of California (Is it really a more prestigious post?) last week, the program was turned down by 37 year-old Louisiana Tech coach Mike White. Hours after White declined, they extended the same offer to University of Southern Mississippi head coach Donnie Tyndall, who accepted. Tennessee will introduce him in a press conference on Tuesday, ESPN reported.

Tyndall, 43, is probably best known for coaching Kenneth "The Manimal" Faried at Morehead State (located in Kentucky and Tyndall's alma mater) from 2007 to 2011. (Faried stayed all four years and averaged over 13 rpg for his last three.) Their most successful season together was Faried's last, when the two led the Beakers to the round of 32 in the NCAA Tournament. Tyndall would stay at Morehead State for one more season before moving on to the University of Southern Mississippi and Conference USA. In his two seasons at Southern Miss, Tyndall has posted gaudy records but no NCAA Tournament appearances. Both years, however, his team made the NIT quarterfinals. Overall, he's gone 56-17 at the southern university.

Should Tyndall find success at Tennessee, he might be more likely to stay than Martin, an Illinois native who attended Purdue. Tyndall wasn't born in the south (Michigan in 1970), but he's spent a majority of his adult life there, and, naturally, has attained a level of comfort with the region's recruiting scene, according to Yahoo's Jeff Eisenberg.

Eisenberg compared Tyndall's excitable personality to former coach Bruce Pearl.

"Like Pearl, Tyndall has a larger-than-life personality capable of luring recruits and energizing a football-first fan base," Eisenberg wrote. "Like Pearl, Tyndall won big in two lower-profile jobs before before making his major-conference debut at Tennessee. And like Pearl, Tyndall favors full-court pressure, though his teams have traditionally played at a much slower tempo than Pearl's Tennessee teams did."